"As we speak of poetical beauty, so..." - Quote by Blaise Pascal
As we speak of poetical beauty, so ought we to speak of mathematical beauty and medical beauty. But we do not do so; and that reason is that we know well what is the object of mathematics, and that it consists in proofs, and what is the object of medicine, and that it consists in healing. But we do not know in what grace consists, which is the object of poetry.
More by Blaise Pascal
“We think very little of time present; we anticipate the future, as being too slow, and with a view to hasten it onward, we recall the past to stay it as too swiftly gone. We are so thoughtless, that we thus wander through the hours which are not here, regardless only of the moment that is actually our own.”
“Imagination cannot make fools wise, but it makes them happy, as against reason, which only makes its friends wretched: one covers them with glory, the other with shame.”
“Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries. Yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.”
More on Beauty
“There is nothing more practical than the preservation of beauty, than the preservation of anything that appeals to the higher emotions of mankind”
“I am not beautiful. My mother once called me an ugly duckling. But,listed separately, I have a few good features.”
“It's in the click of my heels, The bend of my hair, the palm of my hand, The need of my care, 'Cause I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me.”
More on Art
“O painter, take care lest the greed for gain prove a stronger incentive than renown in art, for to gain this renown is a far greater thing than is the renown of riches.”
“Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it.”
“Good writing is a kind of skating which carries off the performer where he would not go, and is only right admirable when to all its beauty and speed a subserviency to the will, like that of walking, is added.”